Need for country-specific solutions stressed

Guests attend a discussion on ‘global compact on migration and global compact on refugees’ organised by the foreign ministry and the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies at BIISS auditorium in Dhaka on Thursday. — New Age photo

Foreign and local experts on Thursday stressed the need for creating an environment that would free people from fears of violence, which might force them to flee the country leading to refugee crisis.International communities, including the UN and its member-states, would require demonstrating political commitment and playing role for durable country-specific solutions to migration and refugee crisis, they said at a discussion on global compacts on migration and refugees. Foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque, while moderating the discussion, raised question about the authorities of the UN on making the zero-draft on global compacts on migration and refugees non-binding for the member states. ‘Who has given the UN authority to say it is non-binding by putting it in the zero-draft [circulated among the UN member-states],’ he said, ‘it has been done deliberately.’ Professor Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University stressed the need for creating a society free from fear in order to stop situations that instigated migration and refugee crisis. ‘People live in fear…Sons of rich people are also going away,’ he said, ‘how will fear go away unless and until [international] instruments are enforced and implemented.’ International community should work for ensuring predictability and fairness in the process of migration, said Gervais Appave, senior policy adviser to the director general of International Organisation for Migration. Political commitment has to be there among the UN member-states at agreeing and ensuring basic services to the refugees including their livelihood and durable country-specific solutions of the refugee crisis, said UNHCR representative in Dhaka Andrew Mbogori, adding that they needed to focus on issues that trigger displacement. He stressed the need for creating an obligation of sharing burden among the originating and receiving country of migrants and refugees. Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies organised the discussion. Adama Dieng, a special advisor to the UN secretary general on prevention of genocide, said in a separate meeting with foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali, in Dhaka, that the UN Security Council should play stronger role for ensuring accountability and justice and addressing the root causes of the Rohingya problem, according to a foreign ministry press release. Foreign minister Ali said the international community needed to impress upon Myanmar authorities to take necessary measures so that the forcibly displaced nationals of the country could return to their homes in safety, security and dignity. Referring to the bilateral arrangement of return between Bangladesh and Myanmar, Ali stressed on the need for creating conducive environment in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Adama Dieng was visiting Dhaka on his way to the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar to interact with the forcibly displaced Rohingyas in Myanmar.